a journey from here to maternity; mothering, breast cancer;related and unrelated infertility issues

Monday, November 13, 2006

Somewhere out there is a postman who I would like to strangle. The only reason I didn’t do so ten minutes ago is that I was focussed on getting A. back into bed. How, I wonder, is it possible to miss a 3x5 inch BRIGHT ORANGE card with “NO DOORKNOCKERS PEOPLE ASLEEP (posties please leave card)” written on it in big black letters. It was bad enough that the wind woke me up from my nap (after a full weekend of preparation, A’s birthday party and packing up and cleaning I deserved it; then to have A woken, thus destroying my precious half hour of coffee-drinking, Web surfing, blogging and writing, is intolerable. The doorbell rang, the dog barrelled down the hallway, the child came out crying, I informed said postman that he’d ruined my afternoon, grabbed my parcels and somehow got the kid back to sleep. The poor dog is still locked in the front bedroom, and staying there until A wakes up again, because he thumps down the hall and I can’t risk disturbing A again.

The party, anyway, was a success, with lots of happy kids and half-drunk parents, plus a swag of books/tshirts/games for A. We gave him a Lego Bob the Builder kit and he was very careful about putting the trucks together, referring to the instruction sheet to see what they should look like. Amazing that three years ago he was only able to cry and breathe– couldn’t even drink properly yet.

With all these new toys in the house and all the cleaning up to do, we’re spending a rare day entirely at home, sans tv. It’s harder work than I thought; I really am in the habit of Getting Out, and I’m not making much progress on the cleaning, what with all the playing, building, and running around after A that has to be done.

So not enough time to blog: I also have to write something, anything, in the next hour, and keep on with my search for the perfect NY sublet for next year…

The Existential Imagination (Picador compilation, Satre, Kafka, Moravia - read all except the boring bits and excerpts from books I may want to read in full one day.)

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line(Essays)

J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus
(this book was written in the 1800s by the author of Heart of Darkness, on which Apocalypse Now was partly based. I'm sorry about the title, but I also don't believe you can change history.

William Gibson,Count Zero

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale (vol 1 of his biography)

Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes (should really be reading this one aloud so A. knows how lucky he is!

Salman Rushdie, Fury
Martin Amis, NightTrain

Keith Laumer, The Galaxy Builder (sci-fi slosh)

The Picador Book of Contemporary New Zealand Fiction (ed. Fergus Barrowman)(the short stories only, not the extracts which bug me)

Neal Stephenson, Snowcrash

Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (second time.)

Andrew McGahan, The White Earth (much overrated, imho)

Cynthia Ozick, The Puttermesser Papers

The Travels of Marco Polo

Will Self, How the Dead Live

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

Vladimir Nabokov, Ada

Christopher Green, Toddler Taming

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Janette Turner Hospital, Due Preparations for the Plague

R. Evans, The Pyjama Girl

Books read while recovering from breast cancer

DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

My Year of Meat, Ruth Ozeki

The Vivisector, Patrick White

William Gibson, Idoru

Martin Flanagan, The sound of one hand clapping
Lance Armstrong, It’s not about the bike